September Highlights:
- Start the month celebrating my birthday
- Luke kicks off final year of middle school by joining flag football team for the first time
- Lilah participates in 3 mile suicide prevention walk with her Kiwin’s group
- Finish season strong at Carpinteria beating Superman for the first time
- Celebrate sister’s birthday
Birthday Celebrations
September always gives us two great reasons to get together — at the beginning of the month, I blow out the candles and three weeks later my sister gets her turn. For my birthday celebration, my parents got a chance to meet Franco, who is a cousin of my cousin Julio. He moved out from Chile after meeting the gal of his dreams, Salina, during a business trip. The courtship began last year and this year they sealed the deal by getting married. We are all happy for him and hope to see more of him. We hosted a barbecue for my event and met up at my parent’s house to celebrate my sister’s special day.
In addition to celebrating with family, I also took the official day of my birthday off work to go surf with my friend Ryan in San Luis Obispo, which is something I did last year as well. Guess that now makes it a tradition. On my way back, I stopped in Santa Maria have lunch with another old friend (Jim) at the Moxie Cafe where we swapped stories and marveled at how fast time seems to be moving these days.
The Kids
Lilah
On the the theme of timing moving fast, Lilah wrapped up her last day of driver’s training this month and is all set to take her driving exam for her license on 10/5. As usual, she is nervous about the test and wonders if she’ll pass as she’s had a few friends who have failed their first time out. I think she will fine. Vicki, her instructor, took Lilah driving around the DMV where her test will take place and our plan is to take Lilah there at least one more time so that she can become more familiar with the environment and be as ready as she can be for the day of the exam. People ask us if we’re nervous about Lilah driving. Maybe that will come in the future, but for now, Cat and I are more excited by the prospect of Lilah having the ability to drive herself to all the places she frequents — school, piano lessons, Kiwin’s volunteer activities, visits with friends, etc.. Lilah is looking forward to that freedom too and said she will not be driving like “Mama,” which is apropos as Cat had a little encounter with the law this month, receiving her first speeding ticket in 25 years.
We had fun telling the kids the story at the dinner table. In order to hear the “funny story” I told Lilah she had to join us at the dinner table to listen to the tale. In typical teenager fashion she said, “really, I bet it’s not even going to be a funny story.” Once we were gathered together we asked the kids to guess what Cat had gotten in trouble for today. Of course, they were like “I don’t know.” Then I told them it had something to do with the car. Without hesitation, Lilah said, “What, you got a ticket for reckless driving?” We all laughed, told her she was close and then let her know about the speeding ticket. After having a chance to process the information Lilah said, “You know, I’m glad you got a ticket because you do drive crazy.” That’s my “don’t hold back” girl. The good news here is that our daughter is a pretty cautious driver who doesn’t appear to have the same heavy foot her mom does on the gas pedal. The takeaway of the tale however wasn’t to make fun of Cat (well, maybe just a little bit), but to make sure that Lilah knows that law enforcement is out there watching, but as long as she continues to drive with care she will be okay. We are all rooting for her to pass her test.
Luke
Luke decided to take on a test of his own this year by joining his school’s flag football team for the first time. It hasn’t started off all that well. The first day of practice he was right on time, but didn’t have his shoes on in time to join the boys who had just started running warmup laps. Not wanting to be left out, Luke apparently put his shoes on in record time and sprinted to catch up to the group on a pretty hot day. Couple that initial surge of adrenaline with all the other running and practicing he did and you have the recipe for Luke wearing himself out. And he did, throwing up in the process. The next stumbling block in his football development was jamming his finger, then re-jamming it again as he attempted to pull the flag off a runner. This led to days of Luke being obsessed by his finger, which then led to x-rays, and then an initial diagnosis that appeared to show a fracture. However, it’s not something the tech at the ER could confirm so that meant Cat had to schedule an appointment with an orthopedic doctor, which Cat will tell you is another ordeal as she had to wait several days to have Luke examined. End result: no fracture, just a sprain. That was good news, but the bad news was no playing time for Luke in the team’s first game.
I started to wonder if we had made the right decision enrolling Luke on the football team rather than the YMCA basketball team where he always has a chance to play. But, as I’ve learned, I keep those thoughts to myself because even if you don’t get to participate, that’s a life lesson too, right? Well, things may be turning around as Luke mentioned the coach told him he had seen a lot of improvement in Luke which could translate into some playing time the next game. There are still many games left so we’ll see how it goes. At least Luke now has some hope and who knows maybe being forced to stand on the sidelines in the sun motivated him to play harder at practice so that he can eventually have the reward of joining his buddies on the field.
I Beat Superman
I resumed competing in triathlons in 2006, which means this was my 11th season of doing races. As he did last year, my dad joined me at Carpinteria for my last race of the year. I had a strong effort — definitely had my fastest bike split there ever and while the swim was a little slower that’s just because the swim was longer this year. When you’ve been competing as long as I have, you recognize the faces around you, especially the guys that are at the top of your age groups — the guys that always beat you. Well, one of those guys was at Carpinteria too and like in a previous event I saw him in, he was wearing his blue Superman jersey. After seeing him at the start of the swim, I forgot all about him until he reappeared on the last leg of the race moving toward me fast as he had already made it to the turnaround point and was now on his way to the finish line. He seemed to be well out in front, as usual, and definitely a bit too far for me to catch him I thought. I figured he was at least 200 or more yards out in front, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been racing hard for nearly an hour and are already moving as fast as you can go, that’s a lot of ground to make up.
When I reached the turnaround, I could no longer see Superman because of a gradual curve in the road. I don’t know that I picked up the pace much, maybe a little, but with a little over half a mile left to go I spotted his jersey again and began to wonder if I actually had a chance to catch him. My pace quickened slightly. I could feel the heart raise rising but I was steadily closing the gap — so much so that by the time I reached the 100-yard home stretch I was within 10 yards of the man with the blue jersey. The glimmer of hope grew brighter. I pushed the pace again and the gap closed even more — 8 yards, 5 yards, 3 yards. I was giving it all that I had. That’s when he picked up his pace too. I pushed again. He pushed back. I heard his friend yell out to him from the sideline that he better push harder because he had someone right on his heels. I got closer, but in the end I just didn’t have quite enough left in my legs to pass him for the win. We crossed the finish line exactly 1 second apart. According to the preliminary results, I had finished 5th in my age group out of 20+ guys. Not a podium finish, but I didn’t care at that moment because of how close I had come to catching the guy with the big S on his chest. Someone who I had never been close to beating at any race, let along the season finale.
Later that afternoon I checked the race results online to obsess over the times in the different disciplines like I always do. However, in that exercise I made the surprising discovery that my foe had been assessed a two minute penalty for drafting on the bike. That put me at number 4 in the standings. As this realization sunk in, a smile came over my face. I had at last beaten Superman.
That’s all for now…more next month!